Story Title: Suddenly I SeeAuthor Name: ImpostersCategory:Pride & PrejudiceStory Url:Story LinkContent Rating: TeenStatus: CompleteLength: 107,200 wordsStory Summary: Darcy knows from his Second Sight that Elizabeth will one day be his wife. Of course, Elizabeth has no way of knowing his assurance is anything more than prideful conceit. Darcy’s certainty will bring much uncertainty before it brings happiness to either.

Gioia’s Rec:

Mr. Darcy can SEE

“Suddenly I See” was an absolute delight. During this tumultuous year, I’ve found that those few times I can read for pleasure, I absolutely have to stick to low-angst, happy-ending stories. Yet at the same time, I crave depth, carefully crafted plots, and significant character development. This story was a perfect blend of all of those elements.

I love the Regency era, and I enjoy historical novels in general, but I also get a kick out of seeing the Pride and Prejudice tale adapted for a modern era. Setting this story in the early 1900s, makes it a fun blend of the old and new.

The inclusion of a fantasy element – Darcy has Second Sight – makes it all the more fun. I got a real kick out of seeing how Darcy’s gift doesn’t make him infallible. If anything, it may have made things more difficult for him, as his confidence about what the future holds strikes an unknowing Elizabeth as high-handed, arrogant, domineering behavior. So, in spite of the more modern setting and the added factor of his supernatural gift, the author does a great job of writing a story that feels very true to the era in which Jane Austen’s original book was set.

In fact, if you’ll allow me to fixate a bit over the use of Second Sight as a defining character trait, I loved this unique method of giving us a Darcy who is so canon-centric! What an ingenious way to make Darcy just as autocratic and dictatorial as our canon-Darcy initially appeared at times, and still make him feel like a philanthropic man of compassionate thought and unstinting altruism! In this story, Elizabeth even muses periodically about how Darcy is a man of contradictions. How can he be perceived as so kind in his hiring practices and business methods, and yet make seemingly arbitrary, imperious and uncompromising decisions? How can he be both generous and rigid? In Miss Austen’s story, the answers have a lot to do with his culture and upbringing. In “Suddenly I See,” that could have been a harder sell for a character in the early days of the 20th century, particularly given the apparent political beliefs of this Darcy. Thus, it works perfectly to give Darcy a closely guarded secret, his second sight, to direct his more capricious-seeming decisions.

My Only Critique: The writing style is not quite the same style as some of the other Jane Austen fanfics floating about. However, the plot and characterizations are carefully managed and overall the story is very well written. It doesn’t drag at any point, and it feels as if every scene was carefully planned for its value to the story. There is no unnecessary babbling here. I don’t recall any typos, which either means that there were only a few, and they were so minor that I zipped right over them thanks to my utter immersion in this lovely story; or else they actually were completely absent. Either way, it is obvious that a lot of hard work was invested in this story, and it definitely pays off.